His small, short-sighted eyes sparkled. He stroked the genius lock from his forehead with a trembling hand.
Now she had him where she wanted him. Perhaps this was the very instant in which to hand him the revolver. But out of respect for the greatness of his mood, she deferred the matter for a while.
Taking a firmer hold of the bag in which the revolver was lying, she went into raptures as once before on the porch.
"Oh, Mr. Redlich, what is finer than such a fight? To dive into the waves of life! To spite the dark powers who control our destiny, and wrest our fortune from them, to come out of the struggle each time with greater strength, a more iron will. Can you conceive of anything more up-lifting?"
But this time, too, her adjuration failed to awaken an echo.
"Good heavens," he said, "on close inspection what after all is this much-vaunted fight? Everybody walks over you, in winter you lie in a cold bed, and all year round you have nothing to eat. Of course, I'm going to go into it, of course I am, but it's hard, yes, indeed, it's hard! If I had a scholarship I should feel much better."
"So that's all the joy you have in facing the world?"
"My dear young lady," he rejoined, "a fellow who starts out with nothing but a satchel of darned wash and a hundred-mark bill—where's he to get much joy from?"
"He's the very one!" Lilly exclaimed, eager to cast a ray of her own confidence into his heart. "When somebody is like you, with the mark of greatness on his face, then the world lies at his feet."
She described a semicircle with her right hand, taking in the entire plain, its green bushes and silvery streams and the city with its wreath of swelling gardens lying embedded in the fields like a lark's nest in a meadow. Lilly felt as if she were showing him a small copy of his future realm.
He nodded several times in the dejected consciousness of knowing better than she what the world is like.
"Dear me, it's hard," he observed, "very, very hard."
She wanted whether or no to convince him of his own ability to conquer, and growing warmer and warmer continued with her peroration.
"If only I could express what I know and feel. If only I could give you some of my own assurance. Look at me, poor thing that I am. I have no father or mother, and no friends. If at least I could have stayed at school and graduated. But here I am, without a vocation, without money, without clothes for the winter—not even a decent pair of shoes." She stuck out the worn tips of her old boots, which until now she had kept carefully hidden. "I don't get as much to eat as I need either; and if I come home too late to-day, I shall be whipped. Yet I know that happiness is lying in wait for me. It is here already—in every breeze that blows my way, in every sunbeam that smiles at me—the whole world is happiness—the whole world is music—everything's a Song of Songs—everything's a Song of Songs!"
She turned from him with an impetuous movement, to keep him from seeing how she was quivering all over.
Down in the city the chimes began to ring. St. Mary, once the cathedral, now the chief Protestant church, came first with its three resounding clangs. St. George uttered a clear third E-G—on high festivals it added a paternal, rumbling C. More bells followed. St. Anne's thin tinkling joined in—modest, yet to be distinguished the instant it began. There was a secret whispering and calling in it: "We know each other, we love each other, and St. Joseph says 'Good morning.'"
Lilly's friend seemed to have used the period of her silence in order to win back his spiritual balance. With the little air of didactic dignity that he liked to assume when he felt he had the advantage in a situation, he began:
"I am almost inclined to think we don't quite understand each other. I was at great pains to make a careful study of the problems of life, and so I see somewhat deeper into things than you. I'm up to snuff about the so-called illusions of youth. I know what men are worth, and I should advise you to be a little more cautious about what you do."
"What do you mean?" she asked, astounded.
He gave her a sidewise smile with an air of mingled superiority and uncertainty.
"Well, beauty carries certain dangers in its train."
"Nonsense, beauty!" Lilly cried, glowing all over. "Who thinks of such silliness?"
"The person upon whom nature has bestowed such a gift," he went on, "has many reasons for being on her guard. For instance, it's a piece of good luck for you that you chanced upon so strict and correct a young man as I am. Another man with a more frivolous nature than mine would have made an entirely different use of an excursion like this. You may be sure of that."
Lilly stared at him. She was carried away by a whirl of obscure and disagreeable thoughts. What did he want of her? Was he reproaching her? Did he scorn her because of her most sacred feelings?
"Oh, dear," she said, utterly discomposed. "I wish we were at home."
"Understand me," he began again. "I am by no means a Pharisee. I have a thorough comprehension of the weaknesses of human nature. I am only offering you a bit of advice in all modesty, and some day you will thank me for it. It is not for nothing that a fellow has his principles. Should we ever meet again later in life, you will, I hope, not have to be ashamed of the friend of your youth."
"If it's a question of shame," something within Lilly cried, "then I ought to feel ashamed now, and of myself."
Forward, undignified, ill-bred—that was what she held herself to be for having begged him to take this morning walk.
Yet there had been nothing evil in the thing! Where had the evil suddenly come from?
The chimes were still making music, the sun was still weaving its net of gold about her. She saw nothing, she heard nothing, so very ashamed she was. She wanted to run away, but did not dare even to stir.
As for him he no longer looked as if he needed comforting. His manner expressed the quiet satisfaction a man feels with a piece of work just completed.
A blackberry had remained sticking in a crevice in the seat of the bench.
"One mustn't get spots on one's clothes," he admonished, and stuck the berry in his mouth, slowly crunching the seeds between his teeth.
Lilly pulled herself together, and caught up her work-bag.
"What are you carrying there?" he asked. "It looks so heavy."
Lilly in terror clutched the bag tight.
"Only the house key," she stammered.
Then they went home.
"If only I could change his mind," she thought, "so that he would have a favorable opinion of me again."
Nothing better occurred to her than to stoop at the wayside and pluck the finest field flowers she could reach to offer to him as a farewell gift instead of that other gift, the mere thought of which made her feel like a goose.
She handed him the bouquet keeping her eyes turned aside. He thanked her with a pretty bow, and twirled the bamboo cane with the silver handle—an heirloom of which he had just come into possession. He swung it boldly about his head, the way future corps students do before making a high carte.
Lilly in her dejection and humiliation was unable to say a word.
"Doesn't an inner voice," he asked, "tell you we shall meet some time again?"
She turned her face away. She had all to do to force back the tears welling up in her eyes.
"Then I hope you will receive proof of what unremitting effort and unshakable fidelity to one's convictions can accomplish even with small means."
His voice now sounded full and vibrant with self-satisfied energy. While making her small and timorous he seemed to have sucked up some of her joyous mood.
When they drew near the Altmarkt, however, he became greatly disquieted again, and kept spying about on all sides. Finally he remarked that the streets were getting pretty lively, and it would be better perhaps if they were to part company and go back by different ways.
A few days later he left home, and the house was perfumed with the garlic of the sausage that Mrs. Redlich sliced into his soup as a farewell offering.
Lilly stood behind the window curtain with burning eyes, and thought in her sorrow:
"Oh, I wish I had never seen him!"
One grey October morning, which hid the threat of approaching winter behind a mask of moist, warm mist as behind a hypocritical smile, the wonderful happened: Mrs. Asmussen's runaway daughters came back again.
Without casting a shadow before them, there they were all of a sudden, shoving several bulging hand-bags into the library, measuring Lilly with an astonished look of gracious frigidity, and ordering her to pay for the cab—they had no change.
Lilly felt the throbbing of her heart up to her neck. The moment the two grand, voluptuous figures appeared on the scene and, though looking a bit weather beaten and washed out, swept victoriously into possession of the territory, she knew they were Mrs. Asmussen's daughters.
She cast one anxious look at the pretty, pug-nosed faces, where two pairs of bright grey eyes challenged the door of the rear room, and another anxious look at the broom of welcome, whose hour had come. Then she hurried off to avoid the terrors bound to follow upon the opening of the middle door.
In the cab she found two withered bouquets of gladioli, a Scotch plaid rolled in a shawl strap, from which two umbrella handles—large blue glass knobs, the size of a man's fist—were sticking out, some cushions trimmed with diagonal bars, and a whisky flask. There was also a tin box of lemon drops sans lid, and a disjointed paper hat-box, between whose cracks a comb and a piece of buttered bread were striving in unison to find their way into freedom.
Lilly gathered up the effects, and stopped in the hall, listening in terror. She expected to hear the screams of the maltreated girls. But all was serene, and when she entered she saw mother and daughters hugging and kissing.
Since there was no time left before the midday meal to buy a roast in honor of the festive occasion, dinner consisted of cabbage as usual, with the addition of a mountain of cakes from the confectioner's, to which the girls helped themselves before the meal in order to lay some aside for days of less plenty.
This was the first evidence of their housekeeperly thrift.
Mrs. Asmussen beamed with motherly joy and tenderness.
"Well," she said, "did I exaggerate when I told you about these glorious creatures? Too bad I had to do without them for so long. But I am modest in my demands, and I am glad enough to get what I do. I know their hearts draw them now to their father, now to their mother, because they cannot make up their minds to deprive either of us permanently of the gift of their pure filial love."
She was sitting between the girls, and she pressed a hand of each. All three looked into one another's eyes devotedly.
The absent pater familias was remembered touchingly. Their gay, talented father, the girls said, intended to give up his large business, to assume the management of extensive farms in the south of Russia at the urgent invitation of influential patrons.
Later, in Mrs. Asmussen's gloomier hours, it transpired that that "pock-marked scoundrel" had had to scurry off because of some questionable notes, and hide in Odessa until the atmosphere in the north cleared.
To Lilly's unpracticed eye the girls were as like as two sparrows—saucy, greedy, inconstant, and amorous. It was only after a time that she learned to distinguish between them. Lona, the older, who possessed some beauty of a coarse kind, had the ways of a clutching, grasping barmaid, and was the sharper of the two, usually dragging her sister Mi in tow, whose chief characteristic was a sort of flabby drollness.
In their treatment of Lilly they observed for the time being the pacific attitude of suspicion willing to bide its time. Hints were not omitted to inform a certain person that they would soon learn what position to take and whether there was to be peace or war.
When they were finally convinced that Lilly was shy and harmless, the waves of their tender confidences met over her head.
It now became the regular thing for all three of them to sit on the edge of the bed until late at night with their corsets open and their knees drawn up to their chins, talking, talking, talking, while they sucked candies bought on the sly, or dressed one another's hair. Beautiful souls poured forth confessions. Whispered confidences about love adventures and man-baiting flowed on steadily, flooding Lilly's pure fancy with a turbid stream of sexual mysteries.
What the Asmussen girls liked above all was to have their bodies admired.
"When I turn this way, isn't the set of my shoulders classic?"
"Haven't I a marble bosom?"
"If I weren't so bashful, I'd take off my shirt and show you my hips. They are like a goddess's."
They made less frequent appeals for criticism of their features.
"We've gotten so many compliments about our good looks that we can't have any doubts on that score."
Nevertheless when cold weather set in, and necessitated the wearing of woolen scarfs over their heads, they did not scorn to discuss the truly Greek way their hair had of growing low on their foreheads, or the seductive curves of their mouths.
They could also be severely self-critical.
"Our eyes are not beautiful, we know. Yours, for instance, are much lovelier. But whetheryoucast sheep's eyes at anybody or not, it's all the same. Now, ifwejust chuck a little sidelong glance—you'd think no one could possibly notice it—why, in a jiffy they're after us like mad."
Their iridescent, cattish eyes would twinkle with the pleasant sense of unbounded power and triumph over the weakness of that strong animal man.
The advice they dispensed liberally to Lilly might be summed up in one sentence: "Do what you please, but don't surrender yourself."
They laid no restraint upon themselves in retailing spicy stories, which set Lilly's pulse to bounding, and in which they proved their absolute seriousness in the observance of this motto.
They manifested a strong sensual craving. One of them once remarked:
"My highest ideal is to be queen of the bees, but to have no children."
The other, who seemed inclined to ethical speculations, rejoined vivaciously:
"My highest ideal is to be a nun and horribly immoral."
She pursued the theme, entering into all details after the manner of the Renaissance narrators, while Lilly's pious soul trembled and shuddered.
Their libertinism of thought notwithstanding, all their hopes and dreams centered about marriage.
To marry, as quickly as possible and as advantageously as possible, was salvation, career, a specific for all ills, earthly bliss, and eternal happiness.
"That is, he must beold, he must berich, and he must bestupid."
This trinity embodied all their demands of fate. As others invest their husbands-to-be with supernatural virtues, these girls revelled in picturing their future spouses' infirmities and in recounting the tricks they meant to play upon them by virtue of their bodily and spiritual superiority.
They were not always agreed as to the ways and means of obtaining this precious possession so absolutely indispensable to life. A favorite subject of debate between them was: "Is it expedient, or is it not expedient, to compromise oneself with the man of one's choice?"
Lona, whose daring in hatching difficult schemes of action knew no bounds, upheld the positive side. Mi, who wished to be sure where she trod, inclined to the negative.
"If you knew those male milksops half as well as I do," Lona scolded, "you'd realize that the best way to catch them is through fear. Make them sin, and twist their sin about their necks like a halter. That's the only way to be sure of them."
"It's very odd," Mi returned with inexorable logic, "that you haven't practised what you preach, because if you had, you'd long ago—"
Discretion bade her break off. Her sister's fingers, crooked ready to scratch, boded no good.
Only a week after their arrival a love tilt took place between them, in which hair puffs and petticoat strings flew about, and from which Mi emerged with a laceration which Lilly had to treat with vinegar compresses the rest of the night.
The cause of their contention was a "swell" who had followed them on their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi, had been discouraged from coming closer because her sister had not responded sufficiently to his advances.
Lona asserted the principle that one must have nothing at all to do with so-called "swells," while Mi was of the opinion that he would have been good enough for a husband at any rate.
Strolling through the streets and permitting themselves to be accosted soon became their chief and daily occupation. Lilly, who had credited, and been greatly disturbed by, the threats they first made that they would assume the management of the business, soon realized she had nothing to apprehend in this regard.
They slept until nine, and took two hours for dressing. Then they went out for their morning walk to make the necessary estimates of the gentlemen of the garrison, who at that hour of the day promenaded in groups near the main guard.
If the first half of the day was dedicated to the military, the second half was devoted chiefly to ordinary citizens.
It goes without saying that afternoon coffee was taken nowhere else than at Frangipani's confectionery shop, where a few lieutenants and a number of city officials and young lawyers gathered to play chess or skat; and where, too, many a more dashing high school teacher came to display his kinship with the proper world of fashion.
After this hour, spiced by all sorts of sweets, followed the promenade at twilight, which proved highly advantageous for establishing possible connections, and provided the subjects needed for discussion at home.
It would not be stating the full truth to say that Mrs. Asmussen brought a loving sympathy to bear in her judgment of this kind of life. Certainly not. The mutual adulation of the first few days had given place to a period of sultriness, when cutting remarks flashed in the murky atmosphere like streaks of lightning. Then a season of protracted storm set in, and mishaps occurred in swift succession, gradually becoming so purely a matter of course that even Lilly, who at first had wept and screamed along with the other three, began to consider this the normal condition of the Asmussen household. Abusive epithets of unsuspected vigor flew hither and thither, and the place resounded with cuffings. Even the broom, which in the beginning had not been given a thought, was now drawn into its strictly limited field of activity.
Peace did not come until evening, when Mrs. Asmussen's medicine asserted its rights. The two girls might have taken advantage of her oblivion to give free play to their desires, had not their highly developed sense of propriety strictly forbidden going out at night.
"Persons meeting us would take us for fast girls," they said, "and then no wedding bells for us."
One would scarcely believe with what a number of conventions the young ladies circumscribed their apparently unrestrained existence.
You may let yourself be kissed as much as you like, but on no account kiss back.
You may let a gentleman call you by your first name in conversation, but if he does so in a letter it is an insult.
You may let a gentleman treat you to coffee and cake, but not to bread and butter.
You may let a strange man tread on your foot, but if he attempts to press your hand under the table you must get up.
And so on.
Lilly had absolutely no comprehension for this set of thoughts and desires. Hitherto man as a male had been a piece of life non-existent in bodily form, which came to her notice on occasions, but glided by like a stranger without holding her attention. She had solely loved the man of her dreams, the man of her novels, the man of her own creation. The thing that stared at her on the street, the thing that came to exchange books and found all sorts of little pretexts for entering into conversation with her, the thing that officiously held aside the wadded curtain of the church door as she entered, or played the amiable over a shop counter, this thing was a strange, annoying fact; it was stupid and brazen, a matter of unspeakable indifference, to think of which would be a waste of time and a degradation.
A girl's entire life, she now learned, was here simply for the sake of that gross and disgusting race; and a girl could concern herself about them from the moment she rose to the moment she fell asleep, without cherishing the thought of the one for whom she had been created as for work and faith and God.
Though Lilly knew she was infinitely above being influenced by the two girls' advice and example, she felt, in spite of herself, a small desire arising within her to find out what the nature of those creatures might be about whom such a fuss was made, whose approval brought pleasure, whose coldness meant annihilation.
She was beset by a tormenting fear of that dreadful, seething world outside there, of the dirt that was carried to her door every day anew, and of the disquieting curiosity with which she picked it up to examine it. For whether or no, her thoughtswouldreturn to the gay pictures, painted in colors of poison, which the two sisters, growing ever more demoralized, unrolled before her eyes evening after evening.
It was a piece of good fortune that the hot friendship both at first bestowed upon her cooled off somewhat after a month or so.
The cause was the enigmatic shortage in the cash box, which occurred time and again, and came to be a permanent phenomenon. Lilly would spend hours calculating feverishly, entering and counting every cent, until finally there was no other conclusion to be reached than that some one had used the few moments of her absence to dip into the drawer where the box was kept.
In order to save herself—in case of discovery she would be accused of the theft—she once carried the key of the drawer away with her as if unintentionally, and did so repeatedly, until the girls' manner, which had grown increasingly estranged and scornful, assured her that she was on the right tack.
On one occasion they gave vent to their wrath and disillusionment.
Didshe, stray dog that she was, think she was mistress of the place? If need be, books and keys would be taken from her by force.
In mortal fright Lilly ran to the mother and threatened to leave that instant unless she was allowed to control affairs as before.
Mrs. Asmussen, who knew her scapegrace offspring through and through, took sides with Lilly, and the storm seemed to have blown over.
The girls took to entreaty and in reawakened intimacy gave Lilly new and comprehensive views into the depths of their soul life.
Did she think they cared a row of pins for the miserable little meringues they ate at Frangipani's? Not a bit of it. They were clever enough to know how to provide for the future. At any rate they couldn't stay with that old guzzler forever, especially since the place had turned out to be absolutely unproductive in regard to good matches. So for a long time they had been saving money industriously for another flight. It was no exaggeration to say they were starving themselves miserably. Lilly with her paltry desires could have no idea how many temptations they withstood when they sat at a table in the confectionery shop at suppertime, and had to look upon all sorts of glorious goodies without tasting them.
Lilly remained unmoved by their persuasive wiles. Their manner cooled off again, and they began to pass her by, tacitly showing their sense of injury.
Soon events occurred that fanned their enmity into a lively fire.
It was dusk of a wet November day. The spouts were streaming and an endless chain of grey drops glided down the iron rods of the porch railing and fell precipitously into the pool gleaming on the pavement below.
A miserable sort of sport to watch the game! But what better diversion had the day to offer?
Suddenly the front door opened, the library bell rang sharply, and in came a nimble little fellow, capering and stamping, and exhaling an aroma of Russia leather and Parma violets. His coat collar was turned up and his hat pulled far down. His close-cut blond hair shone like yellowish-white velvet.
He measured Lilly from between lids masterfully narrowed to a slit with a cursory and apparently disillusioned glance, threw out a strident "good evening," and examined the back part of the room, as if expecting some one to emerge from behind the bookcases and give him a special greeting.
Lilly asked what she could do for him.
"Oh, you are the young lady in charge of the circulating library?" he asked. The existence of such a young lady seemed to transport him into a kind of careless gaiety.
Lilly said she was.
"Splendid!" he replied. "Just splendid!" And a thousand little merry devils danced in his blinking, white-lashed eyes.
Lilly asked what book he wished.
"Be it known to you, most honored and erudite miss, I am not exactly familiar with German literature and the allied sciences, but ever since yesterday I have been possessed of a fabulous and downright sophomoric zeal for culture. If you would help me with your valuable—"
He came to a sudden halt, stuck a monocle in his eye, looked her up and down, first on the right side, then on the left, the way an intending purchaser scrutinises a long-legged horse, murmured something like "the devil," and asked to have the light turned on immediately.
Since it had actually grown so dark that the numbers on the backs of the books were illegible, Lilly saw no reason for refusing his request.
When she reached up in all her glory to raise the chimney from the hanging lamp, he uttered a second and more audible "the devil." And when she stood there before him, the light shining on her sidewise, with an uneasy, questioning look in her improbable eyes—those long-concealed "Lilly eyes"—he sank back on the customers' seat to show how utterly nonplussed he was, and folded his hands and implored her forgiveness.
Lilly felt a hot sense of insult rising in her. So low was she esteemed in her position that an aristocratic young man—the first who had strayed in to her in the course of one and a half years—did not deem it necessary to show her the most ordinary courtesy.
"If you do not wish to borrow a book, sir," she said, giving him a superior look, "please leave the place."
"What—what did you say?" he rejoined, outraged. "I borrow a book?Onebook? One beggarly book? For every five minutes I am permitted to stay here I will take out a whole shelf of books, for all I care, a whole case of books—but with the proviso that I may return them to-morrow. I will immediately contract with the best express company in town to keep hauling the cases away and back again. But one moment—one moment. It seems to me I once heard that for every book taken from a circulating library you have to leave three marks deposit. Isn't that so?"
Lilly stared at him in blank astonishment and said it was so.
"Well, since I haven't such an amount of money in my possession just now, I must ask you to keepmehere as a deposit. So, in a measure, I yield myself up to you for imprisonment. Very vexatious for both parties, I'm sure. But what else is to be done in the circumstances?"
In spite of herself Lilly had to laugh.
"Oh, she's reconciled!" he cried triumphantly. "Her majesty is reconciled. And now let us speak to each other as decorous friends. Observe me well. Do I look as if I read books? To be sure I have my favourites, Schlicht, Roda-Roda and Winterfeld, and others who purport to know the humour of soldiering life. But if I come here, it's not to get books. The thing goes deeper than that. I hope I may confide in you."
"If you think it necessary," stammered Lilly, whose eyes were fascinated by a gleaming chain peeping from under the sleeve of his tan overcoat. She did not know men ever wore gold bracelets.
"Evenings I like to get into mufti—the rest of the time, you know, I wear uniform—but not for long any more—in a few weeks I depart this life, because—do you know what debts are? No? Then rejoice. Debts are the sour sediment in the lemonade of human existence, and the lemonade at that is none too sweet. But what was I going to say? Oh, yes—evenings I like to play Harun-al-Rashid and strive to win the favor of the populace by honouring the populace's more commendable daughters with a little conversation. Understand? So, in remoter districts, where high are the hedges and silent the new villas—so yesterday I—behind two young ladies—laughing over their shoulders and swinging their skirts, exactly the way well-bred girls are wont to do—"
"I beg your pardon, but I should like this talk to end," said Lilly, red with shame.
"Not at all," he said; "I knew at once you are a perfect lady, and have nothing to do with such ticklish matters. I am merely confessing in order to secure a little absolution from your purity."
This turn did Lilly's soul good, and she did not oppose him further.
"So the two young ladies were walking in front of me arm in arm. The moment I reached-them I slipped in between like a slice of sausage in a sandwich. They weren't a bit offish. They told me they owned a large circulating library and intended shortly to open an art shop in Berlin, and so on. But they didn't mention their address, and since—I admit it with shame—until a few moments ago I thought they had some good points, I am simply making the rounds of all the libraries in the directory. Besides the well-known bookstores there are only three. I investigated the other two, and now that I know the third, the art shop proprietresses may go to the devil for all I care."
A feeling of scorn and mischievous delight arose in Lilly. She gave a short laugh, but took good care not to disclose the existence of the Asmussen girls.
To prove to her that in the presence of her majesty all desire for an adventure ended, he presented himself formally: "Von Prell, future ex-lieutenant."
Observing her questioning look he continued:
"As I delicately indicated, my days in the regiment are numbered."
Lilly timidly inquired whether an officer's life no longer pleased him.
"Until now I knew of no sort of life that wouldnothave pleased me." Wanton spirits shot little gleams from his small grey eyes. "But the paternal riches have taken wing, and my wages as army serf will just about buy radishes, and even radishes get expensive around Christmas time. So the best thing for me to do is to buy an old herring keg and let myself be salted and packed. If you should happen to know of one to be had cheap, I give the best prices."
Lilly frankly laughed a joyous laugh. He joined in, holding his hands to his hips and emitting a thin, falsetto tehee, which, though scarcely audible, shook his slim, sinewy body as with a storm of merriment.
They now sat opposite each other like two good friends, with the counter between. Lilly wished the hour would never end.
A maid entered to exchange a volume of Flygare-Carlén for her mistress. He unassumingly disposed himself for a stay, examined the backs of several books, and acted altogether as if he were at home. When the maid left he pulled the door open obsequiously and bowed and scraped as she passed through.
Lilly grew more and more hilarious and restrained her laughter with difficulty.
"Before the next customer comes you must go," she said, "else they'll begin to think something."
"Why?" he asked. "The customers change."
But Lilly insisted, whereupon he took to pleading.
"Listen," he said. "I am known as a man utterly devoid of moral fibre. Doyoube my stay in this mundane existence—at least until the door opens again. While I'm sitting here I can commit no follies, and that must convey some consolation to your charitable heart."
It was agreed, therefore, that he might keep his place until the next time the bell rang. He leaned back in his chair comfortably and scanned Lilly with the tender emotions of unlimited ownership.
"All earthly ills flow from garrulousness," he began. "If Columbus had just kept the discovery of America to himself nobody would have made it disagreeable for him. I will be wilier. I will consider my discovery as a family secret between you and me. What a feast for the fellows! Let them keep to the moths that fly at twilight, like the two prospective art-shop proprietresses, to whom I owe the good fortune of your acquaintance."
Lilly had completely forgotten the sisters. It was about time for them to be coming home. Suppose they were suddenly to open the door!
The bell rang. No, it wasn't they. It was a spinster, who daily devoured several volumes of love affairs, and came every evening for fresh fodder.
The blithe lieutenant, remembering the compact, shot up out of his chair. His demeanour stiffened into business-like coolness.
"If you please," he twanged, "will you kindly let me have the latest work by—by—" Evidently no German author occurred to him. After racking his brain the delivering name came, "by Gerstäcker."
Lilly brought him the "latest work," which bore the date 1849. He deposited the requisite three marks, and took leave with too sweeping a bow, while the little imps frolicked between his silver-white lids.
Soon after the sisters came home, cast a suspicious look at Lilly's flaming cheeks, and passed by without greeting her.
The next day went after the fashion of every other, but something troubled Lilly, something like Christmas expectations, a premonitory restlessness, which pressed on to a new life.
And behold! At the same time as the day before the door opened, and in stepped two elegant young men, who emitted a strident "good evening." Their manner was both a bit assured and a bit abashed as they asked for "an interesting book," while measuring Lilly with the stare of a connoisseur.
She felt her limbs grow heavy and rigid, as always when conscious of being observed and admired. But she maintained her dignity, and when the young gentlemen after selecting their trash (which they scarcely glanced at) wanted to start up a bantering conversation, she tossed her head and withdrew behind the bookcase L to N, which sheltered her when she sat at the window-sill making her entries and calculations.
The gentlemen took whispered counsel with each other, said a low "good-by," and beat a retreat.
So her jolly friend had betrayed her after all!
From now on Mrs. Asmussen's poor little hole of a library swarmed with slim young men of fashion, who were driven by an insatiable desire for reading to exchange one musty old volume for another.
Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not withhold their names, and the last page of the customers' book looked as if extracted from an Almanac de Gotha.
Some wrapped themselves in a coat of business-like correctness, others came with careless assurance of victory. One man began to make love on the spot, and another even had the audacity to bandy gross language over the counter. The naïvest one condescendingly inquired when within the next few days he might expect a visit from her.
Lilly soon came to see that these attentions neither honoured nor gave hurt. She chatted freely with those who were courteous, refrained from replying to those who were impertinent, and the instant a conversation threatened to become lengthy she disappeared behind case L to N.
Within a few days the sisters had discovered the aristocratic visitors.
Their rage knew no bounds. Decency was thrown to the winds. Lilly was not spared a single insult, a single abuse. Vile epithets such as she had never heard poured over her in a dirty stream. The girls demanded that she cede her place at the counter to them. She refused point blank, whereupon they took to maltreating her.
On occasions of greatest need Mrs. Asmussen came to her assistance. The broom rained blows on the white nightgowns of the jealous furies, and drove them into the back room, where the battle was drowned in rivers of tears.
Hostilities continued. In case business exigencies necessitated some self-restraint during the day while customers were present, feelings were given all the freer play in the morning and evening.
Lilly's life became a veritable hell.
A crust of hate and bitterness laid itself over her soul. Partly in fright, partly in satisfaction she felt herself growing harder and sharper. It was only at night that she melted, when she buried her burning head in the pillows and gave vent to her misery in silent weeping.
The merry friend with the white lashes, who had caused the entire catastrophe, did not put in appearance for about two weeks. He came in dragging his legs a little, and his eyes were swollen and bleared.
"This flower," he said, undoing the tissue paper of the package in his hand, "is the picotee, which keeps fresh five or six days longer than any parting pangs."
At the sight of him Lilly felt a little comforting joy light up within her. She took the bouquet as a matter of course, and reproached him for not having kept his mouth shut.
"I told you," he replied imperturbably, "that I am a man utterly devoid of moral fibre."
Then he informed her that the regiment had given him a farewell dinner for good and all, and now there was nothing more urgent for him to do than secure passage for somewhere—if he only knew where.
"But we won't scratch our heads aboutthat," he continued. "Brilliant people such as you and I have brilliant careers. The path of my life leads by still waters of cool champagne, and is paved with little meat patties. That's kismet. No use struggling against it. Even if it finally leads to a sugar-cane plantation in Louisiana, it's all the same to me. One always comes across something new, and that's the main thing. For the present the old man, who's taken a tremendous liking to me, wants me to run about his estate as Fritz Triddelfitz."
He laughed his high-pitched, almost inaudible laugh, which shook him like a storm.
Lilly wanted to know who the "old man" was.
That a person should have to ask this seemed inconceivable to him.
"Have you the least idea of life, if you don't know who the old man is? The old man is the cat-o'-nine-tails. The old man decides what is good and what is bad on earth. The old man breaks one man's neck and pays another man's debts. He is the punch bowl of all our virtues and all our sins. Withal the old man is eternally young. The old man sees you and says to you: 'Come here, little girl. I'm a grey old horror, but I wish to have you.' Then you have just enough courage left to ask 'When do you want me, high and mighty lord?' You see, child, that's the old man. They hist him on to you long ago, and if ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on you! Then all's over and done for with my poor young queen."
"But I don't know yet who the old man is," said Lilly, whom this enigmatic alarum was beginning to make a little uncomfortable.
"Then don't ask," he replied, and held out his freckled hand in good-by. "It's a pity for us two," he added, smiling at her tenderly and compassionately from between his blinking lids. "We could so cosily have enriched history with another famous pair of lovers." Leaning far over the counter, "Since I am a man utterly devoid of moral fibre, I should like to bestow one kiss upon you before I go."
Lilly laughingly held her mouth up.
He kissed her and walked to the door stiffly.
"I can scarcely crawl, I'm so knocked up by my bout," he said, and with that was outside the door.
After this visit Lilly was seized with the same disquieting sense as after his first visit. It seemed to her she was being flicked in sport with tickling switches. But this time, joined to the other feeling, was a certain anxiety which set her nerves a-tingle with a tormenting yet soothing sensation, as if she were waiting outside a locked door of gold, behind which an unknown fate was crouching ready to pounce on her.
Outside on the street the hilt of a sword and the buttons of a uniform glittered in the noon sunlight of a December day.
"A new one," thought Lilly. The stiff, thickset figure of the man who clanked up the steps of the porch was unfamiliar to her.
A masterful stamping outside the door. The bell rang more sharply than usual.
No, she did not know him. He was not a frivolous lieutenant, nor yet one of the maturer ones, who played the dignified and watched with an expectant smile for the first shy glance in order to extract from it whatever they dared.
She saw eyes piercing sharp as a falcon's with a close ring of mobile crows' feet about them; she saw a severe high-bridged aquiline nose, and gaunt cheek bones on which lay a well-defined spot of red finely chased with purple veins. Under a short, bushy moustache she saw thin, compressed lips, the corners of which turned up in a smile of mocking benevolence. She saw a receding chin, polished to a shine by the shave, and disappearing in two limp folds near the high collar.
She saw all this as in a dream. Her heart began to throb so violently that she had to lean against the bookcase.
"Why, this is what I was afraid of," a voice within her spoke. "This is the old man."
He raised his hand carelessly to his cap, but did not think of removing it.
"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice whose rough intonations spread a whole world of authoritative power before her. "I should like to speak to you a few minutes. I have reasons for wishing to know you."
Lilly felt she was to be subjected to a humiliating examination, which she was by no means in duty bound to suffer. But never in her life had she seemed so defenceless as at that moment. She felt as if she were standing in the presence of a judge who had the right to pardon or condemn entirely at his own discretion.
Her lips trembled as she stammered something meant to express consent.
"You seem to be an extremely dangerous young woman," he said. "Why, you've fairly crazed my men, especially the younger ones—there's no managing them."
"I don't understand," replied Lilly, summoning all her courage.
He uttered "h'm," stuck a monocle in his eye, and looked her up and down, or rather looked down to the point where the top of the counter cut her figure off. Then he uttered another "h'm," and observed:
"It's very easy to play the innocent in cases like this. However that may be, I can thoroughly comprehend my young men. Probably I myself should not have behaved differently. But it seems that despite your youth and—inexperience, you possess a very respectable amount of feminine cunning, otherwise you would not have succeeded, in spite of your irreproachably reserved manner—or, perhaps, justbecauseof your manner—you would not have succeeded, I say, in bringing the young men here on repeated visits—they are somewhat fastidious."
Lilly felt the tears rising. It would have been easy to repudiate the insults he offered her; but from where derive the strength to oppose a word in defence to this man whose eyes disrobed her and drilled her through and through, whose smile held her in a wire net?
So she sat down and cried.
He, in his turn, rose from his seat and stepped close to the counter.
"How deeply your sense of honour has been wounded I cannot say offhand. At any rate, it is not my intention to make you cry. On the contrary, I should like you to give me with the utmost composure possible a little information which will enlighten me and which may be of some importance for your future."
Lilly was conscious of only one thought: "You must pull yourself together because he wants you to."
She wiped her eyes and looked at him obediently, sniffling a little, as when she had been scolded in her childhood.
He asked her name, where she had been born, where her parents were, what school she had attended, and what she was doing in the library. At the mention of her guardian's name an ironic smile passed over his face.
"I know the gentleman's views," he said. "So, in short, you have been left absolutely alone in the world?"
Lilly assented.
"And it would not be disagreeable to you to have some mainstay—to know someone to whom you could turn in moments of need?"
"Where is a person like that to come from?"
"Let me think it over at leisure," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "In any case, you cannot remain in this hole. Do they treat you well here at least?"
"Oh, tolerably," said Lilly, and added between laughter and tears, "Only—the food is bad and sometimes I get—" she was going to say "beaten," but was ashamed to, and substituted "punished," which was a perversion of the truth.
The colonel burst into a laugh that sounded like the crack of a whip.
"Very commendable in you to take the matter humorously," he said, and rose to go. "Well, I know what I wanted to know. My men may continue to come to you—in uniform, in civilian's clothes, whichever way they want. They will find no more irreproachable company among the young ladies of this town. Should they ever forget their manners, just drop me a line. But I am sure they won't. Good afternoon, Miss Czepanek."
Lilly watched him walk across the porch with the jerky, springy strut of an old cavalry man. The wintry sun seemed to be shining for the sole purpose of casting a dancing radiance about his figure.
When he reached the pavement he turned to her window and lifted his cap slightly but respectfully. The eyes behind the lowering brows pierced hers, searching, almost threatening. Then he passed out of sight.
Lilly's soul was assailed by a tumult of questions:
"What was it? What was expected of her? Why wasn't she let alone?"
She wanted to cry, wanted to pour out complaints and feel herself pitied. But her trouble had a certain festal tinge, a certain shadowyness and unreality. She bedizened herself with it as with a new hope, and what he had said about some one to whom she could turn in moments of need re-echoed in her soul like a soothing, easing melody. Didn't it seem almost as if he himself wished to be the mainstay so sorely lacking in her floundering young life?
Perhaps he would get Mr. Pieper, who did not concern himself about her at any rate, to give up his guardianship over Lilly. Or, perhaps the colonel might even adopt her, or something like that. There was no knowing.
If only there had not been those dagger eyes, that amused laugh, and that evil, evil look at the end, and above all her friend's warning: "If ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on you!"
However, for all that, what could possibly happen to her behind the counter? Nobody had ever dared to raise the drop leaf and pass through. And surely she was safe behind the bookcase L to N, where she could not even be seen.
The colonel's visit seemed to have acted like a cold douche on his men, despite—or, perhaps, on account of—the guarantee he had given for their good behaviour. Not one of them came to visit her again.
"Is that a sign of the protection he is to favour me with?" Lilly wondered.
Something was missing, she did not know what.
A week passed, and one day the younger sister, who held watch every morning for possible billets-doux, threw an envelope at Lilly's feet, saying:
"Something else again, with a coronet on it, you flirt, you!"
"Flirt" was one of the milder titles of honour that the sisters lavished upon her.
Lilly opened the letter and read:
"My dear Miss Czepanek:—Remembering the interview that took place between us recently, I take the liberty of making a proposition to you. The position of private secretary and reader with me is open. Would you be inclined to accept it? Since I am an unmarried man, it would be in better form for you not to live in my house, but I pledge myself to provide for your maintenance in a suitable and respectable family. Your guardian, whom I took the opportunity to consult in the matter, has given his consent to the plan.—Respectfully yours,Freiherr von Mertzbach,Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans."
"My dear Miss Czepanek:—
Remembering the interview that took place between us recently, I take the liberty of making a proposition to you. The position of private secretary and reader with me is open. Would you be inclined to accept it? Since I am an unmarried man, it would be in better form for you not to live in my house, but I pledge myself to provide for your maintenance in a suitable and respectable family. Your guardian, whom I took the opportunity to consult in the matter, has given his consent to the plan.
—Respectfully yours,Freiherr von Mertzbach,Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans."
—Respectfully yours,Freiherr von Mertzbach,Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans."
So here it was—her fate!
It was there, on the other side of the gleaming snowy street, beckoning and calling to her:
"Come out of your hole. I will show you life. I will show you something new."
But then she pictured herself sitting at the colonel's great desk writing at his dictation. She saw his eyes drilling her, searching her soul, and threatening, always threatening. The pen would fall from her fingers, she would have to jump up and run away, but she would not be able to; the eyes would hold her in a spell.
So Lilly sat down and wrote a very correct letter declining his proposition. She fully appreciated, she said, the honour he did her, but she felt she was not qualified to assume so difficult a position, and she thought that even if she was not so well off she did better by remaining in her modest situation, since she could fulfil the duties it involved. "Very gratefully yours, Lilly Czepanek."
Done! Peace at last restored—as much peace as the bad sisters permitted.
Christmas was drawing near. It cannot be stated with accuracy that the preparations in the Asmussen household produced an atmosphere of mirth.
For weeks Mrs. Asmussen had been sighing over the bad times and the nuisance of having to give everybody in the world a gift. The sisters discussed as frequently and as loudly as possible the question whether it was necessary for refined and aristocratic young ladies to share a Christmas tree with low and vulgar hussies. There was no indication whatsoever of those gladsome mysteries that at this time brighten the saddest of human habitations.
Lilly knitted a brown sweater for her mother, bought her two picture puzzles, a box of sweets, and a wooden vase for flowers—objects of china, being breakable, were not desired—and sent them to the asylum.
At this time her thoughts frequently wandered from her mother to her father, who had now been gone four and a half years, and in that time had given no sign of his existence.
In the forlorn condition she was in, her confidence in his return waxed strong. Christmas eve, about six or seven, he would suddenly enter, snow covering his havelock, and draw her into his embrace with that demonstrative ardour peculiar to him. She almost breathed in the fragrance always streaming from his anointed locks. That was one way. Another was, a servant would bring a little package as a preliminary greeting. Inside would be costly material for a dress. A hat would come, too. She needed it badly.
After the others had gone to sleep she would fetch from the bottom of her trunk the score of the Song of Songs and softly hum the more beautiful arias.
There were some passages which always made her cry. Oh, she cried a great deal these nights. Yet at this very period a tiny, hesitating sense of happiness found its way into her being.
It was a lovely, dreamy feeling of being lifted up, of growing wings, of astonished listening to inner voices, which sounded sweet and familiar as words from a mother's lips, yet strange, like a gospel from the mouth of one who was still to come.
Now and then she found herself kneeling in her nightgown, but not praying, merely dreaming, with arms outspread and rapturous eyes raised to the lamp, as if the salvation she was awaiting would approach from somewhere up there.
Thus, after all, she celebrated Christmas in the quiet of her soul.
Christmas eve was at hand.
At the eleventh hour a few gifts were scraped together. The sisters ran about like wild animals making their preparations. They even bestowed a few kindly words on Lilly, who showed her gratitude by winking when the older sister had to look for something near the cash box. Lilly knew there was not much inside, and should anything be missing later she would replace it from her own funds.
A few minutes before suppertime she was summoned to the back room, where the Christmas tree was already lit. The company was embarrassed.
The sisters held out their hands. Mrs. Asmussen, who was already sitting over her medicine glass, delivered a few dignified words about the significance of Christmas in general and her misfortune in particular in having to forego the company of so splendid a husband on such an occasion.
Then everybody asked everybody else's pardon because the presents were not more munificent. First of all, there had been a "must," which ought not to exist for refined souls, and which at first caused great chagrin. Then all of a sudden time had grown short. Besides, the apron with the red edge was very decent—they themselves had long been wanting one like it—and the pen-wiper was not to be despised, either. Above all, business had been bad.
"I am ashamed to say, I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered. But what she was most ashamed of was that she now felt kindly disposed toward the sisters.
"I haven't a bit of character," she thought, as she bit into the marchpane which the older, the wickeder one, offered her.
The library bell rang. A lackey loaded with parcels stumbled in and asked:
"Does Miss Czepanek live here?"
Lilly's heart leapt.
"From papa—actually from papa!" she rejoiced.
For a few moments she scarcely dared touch the packages. She ran about the room helplessly passing her hands over her hair. She did not venture to undo the cords until urged on by the sisters. They stood next to her, staring with great, greedy eyes.
The things those boxes contained! A light cloth dress trimmed with lace, a delicate foulard dress, a pink silk petticoat, black patent leather and tan shoes, six pairs of glacé and undressed kid gloves, some of them elbow length, three kinds of collars, a fichu of Valenciennes lace to wear with empire gowns, books, writing paper, conserved fruit, and more things, and still more, many more—the boxes seemed bottomless. Even the hat she had hankered for was there, a simple shepherdess shape of light grey felt, which shape had always been most becoming to the grand style of her features. It was trimmed with light brown ribbons and silver-tipped pompons.
A veritable trousseau!
The sisters began to pull long faces. Lilly, too, soon ceased to rejoice. She was full of apprehension. All she wanted now was to find a letter, a card, some token of the sender's personality, which surely accompanied the gifts. She groped for it nervously. Though she had long given up all thought of her father and his return, an instinct of self-preservation impelled her to pretend in the sisters' presence that it was he, and only he, who had poured this flood of treasures over her.
At last—underneath the gloves—she found an envelope and ran off to the library with it.
There beneath the hanging lamp she drew out a visiting card and paled with fright as she read:
"Freiherr von Mertzbach, Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans," followed by a few lines in the heavy, bold strokes with which she was acquainted: "from the depths of his own loneliness wishes his lonely little friend an hour of Christmas joy."
She returned to the back room, where the sisters, green with envy, received her with a chilly smile, while Mrs. Asmussen, nodding over the steaming glass, dropped fragments of mysterious words.
"The things actually do come from papa," said Lilly, amazed at the strange, stifled sound of her own voice.
The sisters gave a short laugh, and silently began to put the gifts back into the boxes.
Lilly was holding a little porcelain bon-bon dish filled with fragrant, odd-looking confections. She glanced hesitatingly from one sister to the other without daring to offer them the sweets for fear of being repulsed with some abusive word or other. She set the lid—a little rose-wreathed Cupid—back on the delicately cut rim, let the dish sink down among the other gifts in one of the boxes, crawled to the corner where she slept, and cried bitterly.
The sisters whispered together a long time. They built a pyramid of the boxes on the counter and passed by it at a respectful distance.
The next morning Lilly summoned a porter from the street and returned everything to the donor without a word of explanation.
Then she went to the sisters and said:
"I didn't tell you the truth yesterday. The gifts didnotcome from papa. So I returned them."
The sisters, who had come toward her with a sweet-sour air of attentiveness, made no effort to conceal their disillusionment.
"Well, I didn't take her for such a muff!" said the younger.
"She's not," said the older sarcastically, who, true to her nature, scented anarrière pensée. "On the contrary she's particularly calculating—wants to drive her adorer still madder. I hope she doesn't get stuck at her own game. Even the blindest mortal soon comes to know the difference between false andgenuineworth."
Therewith, in order to furnish on the spot an example of the genuine quality, she drew her petticoat tight about her legs with her left hand and with her right hand gathered her matinée close under her bosom, and sent Lilly a smile of utter contempt from over her shoulder, such a smile as only lofty souls can summon on occasion.
Nevertheless, Lilly noticed that from now on she was treated with a certain heedfulness, from which she deduced that something was still expected of her.
During the next few days nothing of importance occurred, though the day after Christmas a few of the young gentlemen had put in appearance again. Their manner was jerky as they exchanged their books, they outdid themselves in politeness and they showed no disposition to make themselves at home on chair or counter.
Then—the day before New Year—Lilly received this letter:
"Dear Miss Czepanek:—You shamefully mistook the motives that led me to send you those Christmas gifts. I feel I must justify myself and bring about a perfect understanding between us. I have plans concerning you which I should like to set before you personally, but my position forbids my visiting you repeatedly, and I would ask you, if your future is dear to you, to come to my house to-morrow evening. I shall expect you some time before eight. I give you my word of honour for your safe return. Yours,Mertzbach."
"Dear Miss Czepanek:—
You shamefully mistook the motives that led me to send you those Christmas gifts. I feel I must justify myself and bring about a perfect understanding between us. I have plans concerning you which I should like to set before you personally, but my position forbids my visiting you repeatedly, and I would ask you, if your future is dear to you, to come to my house to-morrow evening. I shall expect you some time before eight. I give you my word of honour for your safe return. Yours,
Mertzbach."
To go or not to go.
That night Lilly did not sleep a wink.
If only the feeling of dread had not obsessed her, dread which robbed her of breath and the power to defend herself. If the mere thought of him brought it on, what would become of her should she stand before him face to face?
She finally decided not to go, while she knew for a certainty shewasgoing.
She lived through the day as in a dull dream.
In the afternoon she obtained permission from Mrs. Asmussen to attend New Year's eve service. The sisters, who spied upon her every movement, exchanged significant looks, but seemed too preoccupied with their own affairs to give hers their usual sweet attention.
Lilly donned the old felt hat which many a storm had buffeted and many a shower discoloured. Her winter coat made her look narrow shouldered, and tug as she would, the sleeves refused to reach her wrists.
If she had had her wits about her she would have been much too ashamed to show herself before so aristocratic a gentleman in that garb. But she was driven to her acts by something outside herself, not by her own volition. Strange, mysterious powers seemed to be pushing her, invisible hands to be helping her dress, smoothing her hair lower on her forehead, raising the arch of her brows, and opening the buttons at her throat to give her constricted chest the freedom of its young fullness. They rubbed her cheeks, pale from lack of sleep, until they glowed with a triumphant red.
When she reached the street and the frosty breath of the winter evening stroked her gently, she felt she was waking up at last.
"Where are you going?" a voice within her asked.
"Perhaps to St. Joseph," she answered evasively.
But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide détour about St. Anne's, crossed the Altmarkt diagonally, saw the sisters sitting at Frangipani's in the company of two admirers, with difficulty avoided the assiduities of a gallant, and suddenly found herself in front of the latticed gateway behind which, four flights up, the sewing machine had rattled and clattered the last remnant of reason out of her poor, ruined mother's head.
Light was shining from the two dormer windows up there where Lilly had once lived.
Some one else was probably sitting there now, sewing shirts and drawers and nightgowns, day and night, night and day. Lilly, too, would be sitting there some day, bitterly ruing her lost youth as one regrets an act of criminal folly.
"If your future is dear to you," he had written.
She faced about abruptly, and ran—ran—ran—without coming to a stop until she reached the lighted house, in front of which a sentinel was pacing and freezing as he kept guard over the highest dignitary in the city.
"Where are you going?" the voice within her asked again.
To avoid answering, she rushed up the wide carpeted stairway and came upon a lackey in silver-striped knickerbockers, who without question quietly relieved her of her umbrella, while the shadow of a mischievous smile flickered across his pudding face.
High white doors were held open for her, red-shaded lamps shone like great flowers, beautiful bare-shouldered women with tiaras in their hair smiled down on her from oval gilt frames.
It was so silent and warm in the spacious rooms you could lie down on the soft carpet and go to sleep. If only there had not been that feeling of dread which was tightening about her throat and brow like a net drawn closer and closer.
Another door flew open. Beyond was green twilight, as in a thick forest, and from out of the twilighthisfigure came toward her, broad, resplendent, clanking. She felt her hand being taken, felt herself being led into the green dusk. Bookcases towered before her like black walls. From somewhere came the threatening glitter of swords, helmets and armour.
She did not dare look at him. Even after she had been seated in a tall, dark arm-chair, whose top hung over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a single glance.
She heard his voice, whose resounding roughness seemed to have been muffled to vibrating organ tones.
It was all unearthly, all that she perceived and felt. It was not heaven, it was not hell. It was a region of anxiety and dreams, where souls hovered between deprivation and fulfillment in a state of lethargy.
At last she understood his words. There was nothing unearthly about them. They dealt most rationally with the Christmas gifts, the return of which he did not consider final. They were securely stowed away biding the time when their mistress would graciously deign to receive them.
Lilly with a frozen smile on her lips merely shook her head. She could not summon the courage to voice a refusal.
"And now you will ask me, my dear," he began anew, "what impels me, a man advancing in years, to hang on to your skirts like a pertinacious lover."
At the words, "advancing in years," she looked up instinctively.
There he sat, too sharply illuminated by the light of the green student's lamp. The orders on his breast gave out a subdued, golden lustre. The silver tassels of his epaulets quivered and glittered like little snakes. There was a shimmer upon and around him like the halo about a saint in gold and brocade.
Confused and abashed by all this glory Lilly quickly sank her gaze again.
"I went to you that time," he continued, "because a dispute had broken out among some of my younger men, of which you were the subject. The matter promised to take a dangerous turn and it had to be adjusted. I expected to find a pert, coquettish little shop girl, and I found—well, I found—you. Now you will ask what I mean by 'you,' because you yourself cannot possibly be aware of your good points, or, rather, your potentialities—everything in you is still in process of becoming. I am what they call a connoisseur in women, my child, and behind that which you are to-day, I see that which you will be some future day,if—this 'if' is the main thing—if the opportunity is afforded you for proper development. You might go to ruin among your old books. In case you have the courage to entrust your fate to my hands, I should like to assume the care of directing your life into fitting channels."
That sounded composed and paternal.
Lilly felt herself breathing easier, experienced a little relaxing hopefulness. She ventured to raise her look once more, and beyond the gold and silver dazzle she saw a pair of brilliant glassy eyes, which had lost their sharpness and were fairly forcing themselves on her with a mighty, greedy questioning. The shuddering and stiffening came upon her anew. She sat there motionless with paralysed will, while she thought:
"Of what avail? He will do whatever he wants with me at any rate."
He went on.
"I own a beautiful old estate, Lischnitz, in West Prussia, near the Vistula, to which my duties prevent me from going frequently. My household there is managed by a middle-aged aristocratic lady, Miss von Schwertfeger—but her name's immaterial. If you were to go there she would receive you with open arms, I promise you that, and you would have an opportunity to develop under the most favourable conditions into the woman I already foresee in you. Your problems for the time being would be solved, and I should benefit by finding my home, when I visit it, lighted by a ray of youth and beauty."
He had risen and in his eagerness to persuade began to pace about her with short see-sawing steps. Each time he moved there was a clinking and jingling like delicate dance music played on small bells. Finally all she heard was this metallic ringing, and she no longer understood what he said.
She pressed against the back of her chair with an indistinct feeling that he was tying her with cords, packing her up, and carrying her off to some spot where no rescuer could hear her cries of distress. She knew she would not offer the least resistance, so completely was she in his power.
"Look at me," he said.
She wanted to obey, certainly—oh, she was so obedient! But she could not.